Port Authority Longs to Lead
Effort to Rebuild Trade Center

Agency Battered by Sept. 11 Is Pressed
To Focus on Area's Transportation Woes

By

Daniel Machalaba Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Oct. 23, 2002 12:01 a.m. ET

NEW YORK -- Frank Lombardi, chief engineer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, wants to help rebuild at the World Trade Center site as a tribute to the 75 agency co-workers who died on Sept. 11. Staring at the great pit, he says, "It hurts to see this wound still open."

But many politicians and local business interests want the battered Port Authority, which had its headquarters at the Trade Center, to stay out of the huge real-estate project. They say that since the agency built the Twin Towers in...